Below are some excerpts from Part 2 of a carefully thought-out plan for our future from Steve Genco (@sjgenco). You can read my post about Part 1 here -- https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/111545392722768770
________________________

Currently, degrowth scholars are focusing on how policy decisions, if implemented soon enough and widely enough, might avoid a disastrous descent. As much as I respect and admire this impressive body of work, my argument is that this is unlikely to be successful, because resistance to change is still significantly greater than the pain the system is inflicting on its primary beneficiaries.

Until that equation changes (and it will change), I don’t believe the world is ready to accept the radical transformations that degrowth scholars have identified, even though these transformations are the only path by which we can realistically put our civilization on a more sustainable footing once we have lost the magical elixir of fossil fuels.

Given that degrowth is more likely to emerge *within* the climate crisis, rather than as a deliberate strategy to avoid the climate crisis, we can expect degrowth’s three primary goals to be achieved somewhat differently than much of the degrowth literature to date anticipates.

Those goals, introduced in Part 1 (https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-12-05/why-we-need-to-grow-an-ecosocialist-party-in-america-part-1/), are:

⒈ Abandon growth of gross domestic product (GDP) as a goal.
⒉ Scale back destructive and unnecessary forms of production to reduce energy and material use.
⒊ Focus economic activity around securing human needs and well-being.

If there is one unshakeable principle underlying our current devotion to capitalist growth, it is that size of financial return is the only valid criterion for making an investment decision. If that return comes at the cost of boiling the oceans or putting billions of people at risk of starvation, that is not the investor’s concern.

I believe the end of growth will finish off much of this opposition to degrowth policies, by virtue of deflating the political and economic power of those most responsible for the obstruction we see today. Only when climate change and resource depletion have rendered growth impossible will governments be ready to entertain new ways to protect the health and wellbeing of their citizens.

Today, the political stage in most western democracies is occupied by three main groups: (1) deregulation-obsessed billionaires, science deniers, and oil-industry boosters on the right, (2) a hodge-podge of “green growth” advocates in the middle who believe we can swap in renewables for fossil fuels and continue growing as in the past, and (3) a small coterie of progressives on the left who believe inequality also needs to be addressed as a contributing factor, but still embrace ongoing growth as an attainable goal.

Currently, there is no room on this stage for degrowth or post-growth advocates who see growth as the problem, not the cure, and identify over-consumption and carrying-capacity overshoot as equally important threats to human civilization. Accordingly, when degrowth ideas hit the mainstream in these countries, it’s much like a fly hitting an electric fly catcher. Pffft.

Over time, this will change. As the world gets hotter and more ecologically damaged, demand for better solutions will increase and radical change will become more acceptable to a struggling populace. When that day arrives, and previous occupants of the world’s political stage have scattered in disarray, the Ecosocialist Party must be ready to step up and provide the answers humanity needs.
________________________

My main concern with Steve's thesis is that by the time the climate crisis gets bad enough for the world to consider this proposed new direction, it might already be too late for any sort of complex society to survive. I hope I'm wrong about that. But in any case, I'm extremely grateful to Steve for providing us with all this valuable food for thought.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-12-05/why-we-need-to-grow-an-ecosocialist-party-in-america-part-2/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Degrowth

Bread and Circuses

2023-12-08 15:00:18

Our Mastodon friend Steve Genco (@sjgenco) offers some excellent ideas on how we might move *forward* into a better world. ...
____________________

Here are the assumptions to start from. If you don’t agree, there is no point in reading any further. You are not operating in the same universe of evidence and facts that I am.

⚠️ It’s going to get hotter, at least 2.0°C above preindustrial temps, possibly 3.0°C or more.
⚠️ The weather is going to get more unpredictable and extreme.
⚠️ Natural disasters are going to arrive at greater and greater frequency.
⚠️ Economic inequality (income and wealth) is going to get worse.
⚠️ We will continue depleting the natural world.
⚠️ The effects of climate change will be unevenly distributed around the planet.
⚠️ Fossil fuels will become financially and energetically unprofitable, ending our temporary Age of Oil sometime in the middle of this century.

What our leaders’ current vision of the future does not include — indeed, what it loudly denies — is the reality of over-consumption and overshoot in the wealthy Global North. In other words, the dominant mental model that rules our imaginations today denies that our rapacious capitalist appropriation of the planet’s natural resources is unsustainable. It denies that overshoot is real, and that it can only end in resource depletion, product and food shortages, out-of-control inflation, rationing, and eventually, a total collapse of our carbon-powered consumption and waste-driven world economy.

Clearly, a vision/mental model that denies the reality of the damage it inflicts on our planet can provide no viable first steps for how to move beyond the pain it produces. Indeed, it denies that any such steps are necessary. Instead, it offers Business As Usual with some tinkering around the edges — a few EVs here, a wind farm there, “green growth”, and promises to clean it all up with magical carbon capture technologies sometime later in the century.

Most politicians operating in the Global North today could never embrace an alternative to economic growth. Even the most passionate climate-focused politicians, like Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State, are still wedded to the idea that any pro-environmental policies must allow for — indeed, stimulate — the continuation of economic growth.

This is a fundamental assumption underlying the “Green New Deal” concept promoted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. It also underlies every other “Green Growth” initiative. “Growth” is even in the name.
____________________

That's just a short excerpt from Part 1, the first of two long articles laying out Steve's proposals. I'll provide excerpts from Part 2 in my next post (https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/111545515488399652).

I really hope you will take the time to read and think about what Steve is suggesting. Those of us who can see that our modern industrial society is in danger of collapse are often criticized for not offering any solutions. That's not true, of course. We have many important and constructive ideas. Let's spread the word.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-12-05/why-we-need-to-grow-an-ecosocialist-party-in-america-part-1/

#USA #Politics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Degrowth #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Why we need to grow an ecosocialist party in America (part 1) - resilience

America has no idea how to live after the end of fossil fuels. When the country is ready to listen, ecosocialism can provide the answers it needs.

^{Bart Anderson (Resilience.org)}

Our Mastodon friend Steve Genco (@sjgenco) offers some excellent ideas on how we might move *forward* into a better world. ...
____________________

Here are the assumptions to start from. If you don’t agree, there is no point in reading any further. You are not operating in the same universe of evidence and facts that I am.

⚠️ It’s going to get hotter, at least 2.0°C above preindustrial temps, possibly 3.0°C or more.
⚠️ The weather is going to get more unpredictable and extreme.
⚠️ Natural disasters are going to arrive at greater and greater frequency.
⚠️ Economic inequality (income and wealth) is going to get worse.
⚠️ We will continue depleting the natural world.
⚠️ The effects of climate change will be unevenly distributed around the planet.
⚠️ Fossil fuels will become financially and energetically unprofitable, ending our temporary Age of Oil sometime in the middle of this century.

What our leaders’ current vision of the future does not include — indeed, what it loudly denies — is the reality of over-consumption and overshoot in the wealthy Global North. In other words, the dominant mental model that rules our imaginations today denies that our rapacious capitalist appropriation of the planet’s natural resources is unsustainable. It denies that overshoot is real, and that it can only end in resource depletion, product and food shortages, out-of-control inflation, rationing, and eventually, a total collapse of our carbon-powered consumption and waste-driven world economy.

Clearly, a vision/mental model that denies the reality of the damage it inflicts on our planet can provide no viable first steps for how to move beyond the pain it produces. Indeed, it denies that any such steps are necessary. Instead, it offers Business As Usual with some tinkering around the edges — a few EVs here, a wind farm there, “green growth”, and promises to clean it all up with magical carbon capture technologies sometime later in the century.

Most politicians operating in the Global North today could never embrace an alternative to economic growth. Even the most passionate climate-focused politicians, like Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington State, are still wedded to the idea that any pro-environmental policies must allow for — indeed, stimulate — the continuation of economic growth.

This is a fundamental assumption underlying the “Green New Deal” concept promoted by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others. It also underlies every other “Green Growth” initiative. “Growth” is even in the name.
____________________

That's just a short excerpt from Part 1, the first of two long articles laying out Steve's proposals. I'll provide excerpts from Part 2 in my next post (https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/111545515488399652).

I really hope you will take the time to read and think about what Steve is suggesting. Those of us who can see that our modern industrial society is in danger of collapse are often criticized for not offering any solutions. That's not true, of course. We have many important and constructive ideas. Let's spread the word.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-12-05/why-we-need-to-grow-an-ecosocialist-party-in-america-part-1/

#USA #Politics #Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Degrowth #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Bread and Circuses

2023-12-08 15:31:31

Below are some excerpts from Part 2 of a carefully thought-out plan for our future from Steve Genco (@sjgenco). You can read my post about Part 1 here -- https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/111545392722768770
________________________

Currently, degrowth scholars are focusing on how policy decisions, if implemented soon enough and widely enough, might avoid a disastrous descent. As much as I respect and admire this impressive body of work, my argument is that this is unlikely to be successful, because resistance to change is still significantly greater than the pain the system is inflicting on its primary beneficiaries.

Until that equation changes (and it will change), I don’t believe the world is ready to accept the radical transformations that degrowth scholars have identified, even though these transformations are the only path by which we can realistically put our civilization on a more sustainable footing once we have lost the magical elixir of fossil fuels.

Given that degrowth is more likely to emerge *within* the climate crisis, rather than as a deliberate strategy to avoid the climate crisis, we can expect degrowth’s three primary goals to be achieved somewhat differently than much of the degrowth literature to date anticipates.

Those goals, introduced in Part 1 (https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-12-05/why-we-need-to-grow-an-ecosocialist-party-in-america-part-1/), are:

⒈ Abandon growth of gross domestic product (GDP) as a goal.
⒉ Scale back destructive and unnecessary forms of production to reduce energy and material use.
⒊ Focus economic activity around securing human needs and well-being.

If there is one unshakeable principle underlying our current devotion to capitalist growth, it is that size of financial return is the only valid criterion for making an investment decision. If that return comes at the cost of boiling the oceans or putting billions of people at risk of starvation, that is not the investor’s concern.

I believe the end of growth will finish off much of this opposition to degrowth policies, by virtue of deflating the political and economic power of those most responsible for the obstruction we see today. Only when climate change and resource depletion have rendered growth impossible will governments be ready to entertain new ways to protect the health and wellbeing of their citizens.

Today, the political stage in most western democracies is occupied by three main groups: (1) deregulation-obsessed billionaires, science deniers, and oil-industry boosters on the right, (2) a hodge-podge of “green growth” advocates in the middle who believe we can swap in renewables for fossil fuels and continue growing as in the past, and (3) a small coterie of progressives on the left who believe inequality also needs to be addressed as a contributing factor, but still embrace ongoing growth as an attainable goal.

Currently, there is no room on this stage for degrowth or post-growth advocates who see growth as the problem, not the cure, and identify over-consumption and carrying-capacity overshoot as equally important threats to human civilization. Accordingly, when degrowth ideas hit the mainstream in these countries, it’s much like a fly hitting an electric fly catcher. Pffft.

Over time, this will change. As the world gets hotter and more ecologically damaged, demand for better solutions will increase and radical change will become more acceptable to a struggling populace. When that day arrives, and previous occupants of the world’s political stage have scattered in disarray, the Ecosocialist Party must be ready to step up and provide the answers humanity needs.
________________________

My main concern with Steve's thesis is that by the time the climate crisis gets bad enough for the world to consider this proposed new direction, it might already be too late for any sort of complex society to survive. I hope I'm wrong about that. But in any case, I'm extremely grateful to Steve for providing us with all this valuable food for thought.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-12-05/why-we-need-to-grow-an-ecosocialist-party-in-america-part-2/

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Degrowth

Why we need to grow an ecosocialist party in America (part 2) - resilience

When America is ready for ideas that work, we’ll need political leaders who are ready with ideas that work.

^{Bart Anderson (Resilience.org)}

The super-rich are killing us. Not just figuratively, but literally.
________________________

Climate change is overwhelmingly a problem of wealthy people. The wealthiest 1% of humanity produce over 1,000 times the emissions of the poorest 1%. In fact, these 77 million people are responsible for more climate-changing emissions than the poorest 66% (5 billion people) of humanity.

Since 1990, the personal emissions of the world’s wealthiest have exploded. They are now 77 times larger than the level that would be compatible with a 1.5°C warming limit.

Who are these super-polluters? The richest 1% are billionaires, millionaires and people earning over US$140,000 (£110,000). The threshold to join the rarefied club of the top 10% is US$41,000 (£32,000), including most of the middle class in wealthier countries.

But the super-rich are responsible for climate change well beyond consumption-based emissions. The super-rich, by and large, run major companies, direct investments and shape national and international laws. They have an oversized and controlling impact on our media and public opinion, including through advertising and ownership of media outlets. And they directly shape policy through lobbying and paid-for influence.

While their money and power make them overwhelmingly responsible for climate change, they are also insulated from the worst impacts. They are less affected by increased food prices and climate disasters, can afford insurance and to move from one place to another, and have greater resources to draw on in times of crisis.

It is the poorest – those least responsible for climate changing emissions – who suffer the most. They suffer higher losses, live in the most impacted regions, and have little to no access to savings, public support or welfare when crisis strikes. They are also least able to exercise their rights as they are the least powerful and less well represented politically.

It would take approximately 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99% to produce as much carbon as a single billionaire does in a year.
________________________

The choice is very simple. Either we can have a livable biosphere or we can have billionaires. But we can't have both.

FULL ARTICLE -- https://theconversation.com/emissions-inequality-is-getting-worse-heres-how-to-end-the-reign-of-the-ultra-polluters-218308

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism

Shame, shame, shame on the organizers of #COP28...
____________________________

At least 2,456 fossil fuel lobbyists have been granted access to the COP28 summit in Dubai, signalling an unprecedented presence at crucial climate talks from representatives of some of the world’s biggest polluters, according to a new analysis from the Kick Big Polluters Out (KBPO) coalition.

Alexia Leclercq of Start:Empowerment says, “Do you really think Shell or Chevron or ExxonMobil are sending lobbyists to passively observe these talks? To advance climate solutions for the benefit of communities whose air and water they pollute? To put people and the planet over profit and their greedy dollars? Big Polluters’ poisonous presence has bogged us down for years, keeping us from advancing the pathways needed to keep fossil fuels in the ground. They are the reason COP28 is clouded in a fog of climate denial, not climate reality.”

In a year when global temperatures and greenhouse gas emissions shattered records, there has been an explosion of fossil fuel lobbyists heading to UN talks, with nearly four times more than were granted access last year.

“2023 was a year like no other. Record temperatures, record levels of emissions, and now we see a record attendance from Big Polluters at UN climate talks. The window to preserve a liveable planet is rapidly closing. At the same time, ever greater numbers of Big Polluters are allowed to roam around this summit,” said Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan of Climate Action Network International.
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LEARN MORE -- https://kickbigpollutersout.org/articles/release-record-number-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-attend-cop28

#Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

Left to themselves, the majority of consumers in the Global North will *never* make all the adjustments that are required. We are in urgent and desperate need of bold leadership, but we’re not getting it.
____________________________

"Climate change is happening, so why do we still act like it's not?"

Climate researchers initially assumed that if you gave people the right information, we would act on it. Burning fossil fuels comes with severe consequences — so let's phase out fossil fuels. But they found out very quickly this was not the case.

For many people, it triggered cognitive dissonance, where they knew climate change was happening but acted like it wasn't. After all, many people still smoke, even though they know it is bad for their health. And many of us still fly to Italy — even though we know how many extra tons of carbon dioxide we put into the atmosphere.

Why is it so easy to understand but not act?

It's because of public and private narratives we have grown up with. Our expectations of life are geared towards wanting comfort and stability.
____________________________

FULL ARTICLE -- https://phys.org/news/2023-11-denial-climate.html

#Environment #Climate #ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #ClimateEmergency #Capitalism #BusinessAsUsual

What #BigOil knew about #ClimateChange, in its own words

by Benjamin Franta, October 28, 2021

"Back in 1979, #Exxon had privately studied options for avoiding #GlobalWarming. It found that with immediate action, if the industry moved away from #FossilFuels and instead focused on #renewable energy, fossil fuel pollution could start to decline in the 1990s and a major #ClimateCrisis could be avoided.

"But the industry didn't pursue that path. Instead, colleagues and I recently found that in the late 1980s, Exxon and other oil companies coordinated a global effort to dispute #ClimateScience, block fossil fuel controls and keep their products flowing.

"We know about it through internal documents and the words of industry insiders, who are now beginning to share what they saw with the public. We also know that in 1989, the fossil fuel industry created something called the Global Climate Coalition—but it wasn't an environmental group like the name suggests; instead, it worked to sow doubt about climate change and lobbied lawmakers to block clean energy legislation and climate treaties throughout the 1990s.

"For example, in 1997, the Global Climate Coalition's chairman, William O'Keefe, who was also an executive vice president for the American Petroleum Institute, wrote in the Washington Post that 'Climate scientists don't say that burning oil, gas and coal is steadily warming the earth,' contradicting what the industry had known for decades. The fossil fuel industry also funded think tanks and biased studies that helped slow progress to a crawl."

Read more:
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-big-oil-knew-climate-words.html

#ExxonKnew #BigOilKnew #BigOilAndGas #Climate #ClimateEmergency